Daniel heradstveit

Shi’i Politics in Iraq during the First Weeks after the Fall of the Ba’th Regime
Prior to the war in Iraq in 2003, some Shi’i protagonists for a federal Iraq claimed that almost all the Shi’is supported this model as the best future system for the country.125 As seen above, significant objections to this point of view could be found in circles which did not frequent the US-sponsored conferences, and little
123 Kazim al-Ha’iri, Al-imama wa-qiyadat al-mujtama’ (Qum, 1995), part 3.
124 Al-Shaykh ’AH, Ightiyal, pp. 339-344.
125 ”Iraqi Opposition Coups Want a Federal State But Have Yet to Agree on Form”, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, November 5, 2002.
could be known about the opinion of the Iraqis still living under the authoritarian Ba’th system. As the war progressed and spaces for political debate opened up in Iraq, the various Islamic parties of the exiled opposition gradually returned and started to interact with both members of their own organizations who had remained in Iraq as well as the new political movements which had developed during the final years of the former regime.
Attacks on Pro-US and Apolitical Religious Circles
It was the most enthusiastic supporters of federalism who, at least in an indirect sense, suffered the first casualty in the political chaos of post-war Iraq. On April

10, 2003, the newly returned ’Abd al-Majid al-Khu’i was stabbed to death by an armed mob in Najaf only days after his arrival in the area in an operation made possible through co-ordination with the US.126 Khu’i had oscillated between an apolitical attitude and active partnership with the US, but at least in the final months of his life, there had been a marked shift towards political participation, and Khu’i had even made specific proposals for how power could be divided between the largest communities in a future government.127 Although he had often dodged the federalism issue, his keen participation in the work of the exiled opposition in late 2002 suggested that he was not hostile to the idea, and for the pro-federalist camp he doubtless represented a potential intermediary vis-a-vis the more apolitical but highly important Sistani.
Shortly after his arrival, Khu’i became engaged in work to restore normalcy in Najaf and was in the process of effecting a reconciliation between the local population and a Shi’i who had been in the employ of the former regime when he was murdered. While some explained his death as a tragic accident that happened when the people of Najaf took their revenge on a collaborator with the Ba’th party, it was equally evident that others attributed his death to larger ideological issues. His increased co-operation with the US had been criticized by Iraqi exiles in Iran shortly before the war,128 people in Qum close to Sistani had publicly indicated growing discord between the leading marja’ and Khu’i shortly before he was murdered,129 and it was openly suggested that his death was the result of his having entered the
126 ”Shahid ’ala rihlat al-khu’i ila al-’iraq”, serial in al-Sharq al-Awsat, April 23-29, 2003.
127 Shortly before his death in 2003, a sharp contrast had developed between the position of Khu’i the father, who during the rebellion against the regime in 1991 had limited his involvement to an appeal for public committees to be established to take care of law and order, and Khu’i the son, who by now had entered the discussion about sectarian spoils in a future regime by calling for a Shi’i president for Iraq with three vicepresidents (for the Shi’is, the Sunnis and the Kurds respectively), see interview in alQabas, January 11, 2003, published at www.iraqishiacouncil.com.
128 ”Opponents Disrupt Meeting of Iraqi Shiite Moderate”, AFP, January 9, 2003.
129 ”Namayandah-i ayat allah sistani: ishan hich kas az jumlah-i sayyid majid khu’i-ra bih hudur napadhiruftah and”, www.baztab.com, April 10, 2003. Similarly, in the wake of the assassination, Iranian media portrayed Khu’i as someone who had departed from the traditional path of the Najaf clergy, al-Wifaq, April 12, 2003, pp. 1-2.

154
Oil in the Gulf: Obstacles to Democracy and Development
area ”riding on foreign tanks”. After the murder in Najaf, some newly returned exiled clerics, such as lyad Jamal al-Din, took up the role Khu’i had been expected to play by promoting a secular state at the carefully orchestrated meetings of politicians which were held under US auspices in Nasiriyya131 and later in Baghdad.132 In May, Muhammad Bahr al-’Ulum returned to Iraq and quickly became engaged in dialogue with other segments of the opposition in Baghdad.133 But this activity by the religious forces thought to be most receptive to the idea of federalism appeared restricted to the level of elite politics, with few signs of persuasive symbolic power or widespread public support.
Also the apolitical clergy, which probably constituted an abstainer rather than an oppositionist in the debates over federalism, came under pressure as Iraq started to change. In the wake of the murder of Khu’i, rumors emerged that Sistani’s house in Najaf had been besieged and that he had been ordered by political activists critical of his quietist stand to leave the city.134 The stand-off did come to a peaceful end, but reports of a precarious state of security in Najaf persisted. Sistani subsequently moved to consolidate the traditionalist faction of leading ulama in the holy cities by deepening his links with the three mujtahids, generally considered to follow next to him in rank.135 Nevertheless, in May he remained isolated from the public, and there were suggestions that he planned a pilgrimage to Iran or Syria to escape the mounting conflict over control of the holy cities.136
Power Struggles among Political Activists
Some of the more outspoken skeptics with regard to federalism had belonged in one way or another to the Da’wa party or the various factions which all claimed to be the real heirs to the original movement. In the times of the Ba’th regime, these circles had often been credited with a significant underground presence in Iraq, and were among the most vocal critics of conferences attended by exiles who were ”not representative of the real opposition on the ground”. Despite the opening up of headquarters in Iraq for some of these organizations in the weeks immediately following the war as well as reports about the presence of armed groups loyal to the Da’wa in several locations in Iraq, the public appearance of the movement in this period (when demonstrations were arranged and posters of potential future leaders were popping up all over Iraq) did not quite live up to the expectations of a unified movement with a strong public appeal which its exiled members had generated. In
130 Interview with Muhammad Mahdi al-Khalisi, al-Mustaqbal, April 19, 2003.
131 The idea of a federal Iraq was reiterated at this meeting, which was boycotted by most of the Islamists, Al-Jazeera Television, special news bulletin Ma ba ’da saddam presented by ’Abd al-Samad Nasir, April 15, 2003.
132 ”Jamal al-din yuhadhdhiru min tasalluh al-azhab”, al-Zaman, April 29, 2003.
133 ”Bahr al-’ulum yaqtarihu sab’a mustaqillin muhayidin”, al-Zaman, May 26, 2003.
134 ”Jama’at muqtada al-sadr tuhasiru manzil al-sistani” al-Sharq al-Awsat, April 14, 2003.
135 ”Harakat al-sadr tunassibu al-ha’iri marja’an”, al-Zaman, April 29, 2003.
136 ”Al-sistani yanwi ziyarat Iran”, al-Sharq al-Awsat, May 26, 2003.
Shi’i Perspectives on a Federal Iraq
155
particular, there seemed to be no public figure around whom the supporters of the movement could rally.
During the 1990s, the leading branch of the Da’wa had repeatedly refused to establish links with any particular marja’, leaving this issue to the individual member.137 But for a movement claiming to be the successor to the spiritual heritage of Baqir al-Sadr, the lack of a strong link to a leading, activist cleric in Iraq appeared to create a deficiency in the symbolic repertoire. Fadl Allah, seen by some as a potential future leader, remained in Lebanon despite speculations about a possible return,138 whereas others who had supported Muhammad al-Sadr in the past were now faced with competition from the movement led by his son, apparently without being able to offer any weighty political alternative. At the same time, no personalities from the lay leadership of the party managed to acquire a very prominent position in Iraqi politics during the initial period after the war. In April, the Da’wa participated with some delegates at the Madrid conference of the opposition (where federalism was mentioned as a key principle in the concluding declaration), and in May, its largest faction joined the US-backed process of preliminary consultations for the establishment of an interim government.139
SCIRI, on the other hand, had often been accused before the war of being merely the brainchild of the Iranian regime, completely dependent upon hardliners in Teheran for support. There is little doubt that the organization profited immensely from the link to Iran in terms of material support which facilitated the logistics of its swift return to Iraq in April 2003 and enabled it to play a prominent role during the first, large-scale religious celebration in Karbala on the occasion of the arba’in (end of a forty-day mourning period) of Imam Husayn.140 But the grand receptions accorded to Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim during his triumphant homecoming to Iraq in May indicated something more than an Iranian marionette, and despite counter-demonstrations in certain areas,141 these events surpassed the displays of public support accorded to most other political figures in Iraq at the time. SCIRI proceeded quickly to establish a presence in Baghdad and the holy cities where it began work to open an Islamic university,142 and seemed able to continue its pragmatic course vis-d-vis the US while retaining legitimacy among its followers. The organization had adopted a businesslike position towards federalism in 2002, and while the concept failed to appear as a central theme in the
137 Ra’uf, Hizb al-da’wa, p. 20; Sakai, ”Modernity”, p. 46.
138 Interview with Fadl Allah, al-Sharq al-Awsat, May 2, 2003.
139 It has been suggested that the decision of the Da’wa to join these discussions resulted from advice from Fadl Allah (whose anti-federalist position is described above), see ”Washington May Find Unusual Ally in Fadlallah”, Daily Star, May 31, 2003.
140 ”Al-hakim yad’u li-tajammu’ fi karbala’ ”, www.aljazeera.net, April 17, 2003. The skillfulness of the Iranians in promoting their points of view among an Iraqi public was also evident in the success of the ’Alam television channel, established shortly before the war and reaching huge masses of Iraqis by using terrestrial rather than satellite technology.
141 Middle East International, April 18, 2003, p. 27.
142 Al-Wifaq, May 8, 2003, p. 1.

156
Oil in the Gulf: Obstacles to Democracy and Development
propaganda of the party, there was nothing to suggest that its stand on the issue had changed dramatically in the first weeks after the war.
The third main grouping among the Islamic activists in Iraq in early 2003 was the movement led by Muqtada al-Sadr. This political faction quickly acquired notoriety because of allegations of its involvement in the killing of Khu’i and the siege of Sistani in Najaf in April, and it is not improbable that the subsequent media interest blew the image of its public influence somewhat out of proportion. In particular, it is unlikely that all the posters of the late Muhammad al-Sadr carried in the anti-American demonstrations in Iraq necessarily represented signs of loyalty to his son. Nevertheless, it soon emerged that the young Sadr did have an extensive network of contacts in Iraq, and his influence grew quickly as people loyal to him stepped in to fill the power vacuum after the collapse of the Ba’th regime and the subsequent spectacular failure of the coalition forces to address basic issues of human security in areas under their control.143 The position of the Sadrites was consolidated through anti-American demonstrations and well-attended Friday prayers (particularly in the poorer areas of Baghdad, where one vast suburb was renamed Madinat al-Sadr after the fall of the regime) and profited from the powerful symbolism associated with Muqtada’s father, considered by many Iraqis as a martyr who died in a struggle against the former regime. In Basra, clerics began to promote radical policies similar to those backed by the followers of Sadr,144 and in other cities of the south, there were forced takeovers of Sunni mosques resembling acts carried out by his lieutenants in Baghdad.145 In May, after Sadr had forged his new alliance with Ha’iri, posters of this leading cleric (who remained in Iran) became another element in the public demonstrations headed by this movement,146 and a subsequent visit by Muqtada al-Sadr to Qum in conjunction with the commemoration of Khomeini’s death resulted in contacts with leading conservative Iranian politicians.147
Perhaps most importantly, people in Sadr’s circles appear to have spearheaded the development of political slogans which gave hints about possible future directions in Iraqi politics, rallying cries which actually proved to have resonance among the Iraqi public instead of being confined to the theoretical discussions of political elites. With regard to the future system of government, these slogans were noteworthy for the recurrence of the concept of the religious schools in Najaf (alhawza) as the sole representative (al-mumaththil al-wahid) for the Shi’is (or the
143 ”Shiite Clerics Move to Assume Control”, Washington Post, April 14, 2003; ”Rijal aldin al-shi’a yandafi’una li-maT al-faragh al-siyasi”, al-Quds al-’Arabi, April 18, 2003; ”Le cherif des chiites fait la loi a Saddam City”, Le Figaro, April 16, 2003.
144 Al-Hayat, May 19, 2003, p. 4.
145 ” ’Anasir min hizb al-da’wa la tusghi li-fatwa al-maraji’ al-shi’iyya al-’ulya”, alZaman, May 20, 2003.
146 Al-Jazeera Television, evening news bulletin, May 19, 2003, 2000 GMT.
147 ”Safar-i sayyid muqtada sadr bih iran”, www.baztab.com, June 6, 2003.
Shi’i Perspectives on a Federal Iraq
157
Iraqi Muslims in their entirety, as some claimed). l48 Further down the political hierarchy, in interviews with ordinary citizens, the notion of ”a clergyman to be the future president of Iraq” was frequently heard.149 Such preparedness to delegate authority more or less blindly to those within the hawza who were prepared to take up a political role seemed at variance with earlier claims by the exiled opposition about the strong aversions to clerical rule said to distinguish Iraq from Iran, and formed a contrast to the perception of Najaf as a city where quietism had a strong appeal.150 It was posters of the activist martyr Muhammad al-Sadr, who had spoken of an ”articulate hawza” (al-hawza al-natiqd), rather than images of Sistani (seen by the Sadrites as the representative of the ”dormant hawza’) which dominated in the public demonstrations in Iraq in April and May 2003. After having declared his new association with Ha’iri, a firm adherent of wilayat al-faqih who had earlier severed links with the Da’wa over the issue, Muqtada al-Sadr too publicly voiced his support for this model of government. 151 With these developments, the issue of federalism showed signs of having faded into the background in May 2003, at least temporarily.
Traditionalists, Islamists and New Radicals
With the appearance shortly after the fall of the Ba’th regime of death threats against prostitutes and vendors of alcohol,152 warnings from prayer leaders to unveiled women and cinema proprietors,153 and suggestions from religious clerics that Christians too should be subjected to Islamic laws or ”Islamic manners”,154 the impression that Iraq was headed into uncharted waters was strong indeed. This new radicalism was accompanied by material efforts to establish control on the ground by loyalists of Muqtada al-Sadr, whose well-armed followers had a lead on most of the competing Islamist movements because of their established presence in Iraq
148 Other variants of this theme were found in slogans and statements such as ”Our voice is the voice of the hawza” (sawtuna huwa sawt al-hawza al- ’ilmiyya) and ”The selection of the representatives of the people is a matter for the hawza” (ikhtiyar mumaththili alsha’b amr ya’udu ila al-hawza al-’ilmiyya), see al-Hayat, April 16, 2003, p. 1; extracts from press conference held by ’Abd al-Hadi al-Muhammadawi, www.alsader.com, May

2003; ”Alaf al-’iraqiyyin yatazaharuna didda ijtima’ al-mu’arada fi al-nasiriyya”, www.aljazeera.net, April 15, 2003.
149 BBC World, news bulletin, June 10, 2003, 1800 GMT.
150 Political quietism is inevitably less spectacular than hard-line Islamism, but in early

2003 it looked as if the old fallacy of reducing Shi’ism to an Iranian phenomenon had been overtaken by an equally problematic counter-stereotype of an Iraqi Shi’ism supposed to be tribal, rural, focused on religious rituals and almost militantly averse to the idea of clerics assuming the reins of political power.
151 Interview with Muqtada al-Sadr. www.alsader.com, May 2003.
152 ”Mutahammisun li-tatbiq al-namudaj al-irani...”, al-Zaman, May 28, 2003.
153 ”Imam shi’i ’iraqi yatawa’adu nisa’ wa-ashab dur sinima wa-ba’at al-khamr”, al-Sharq al-Awsat, May 17,2003.
154 ”Al-sadr yad’u min al-najaf ila dawla islamiyya tulzimu al-masihiyyin bi-al-islam”, alZaman, May 5, 2003.

158
Oil in the Gulf: Obstacles to Democracy and Development
prior to the war. In particular, Sadr made an effort to acquire control of the hawza, by claiming to speak in its name, denouncing its apolitical members as unworthy representatives of the Shi’is, and even making suggestions that new political parties should be subject to screening for political correctness at the hands of the hawza.155
At first sight, the concept of a centralized hawza, speaking with a single voice and opening up offices as if it were a perfectly bureaucratic organ,156 appears antithetical to the ethos of scholarship that had characterized Najaf in the past.157 The traditional system of education was essentially decentralized, to the extent that a Shi’i student attempting in the early 1990s to analyze the ”position of the hawza” on educational matters historically complained about the absence of a unified strategy and ended up studying the points of view of individual clerics.158 To a certain degree, the subsequent centralization may have been the result of an increasingly bureaucratic and authoritarian state that demanded a representative to deal with in issues such as military conscription and international visiting students (Khu’i had fulfilled this role in his time as the unrivalled grand mujtahid in Najaf),159 but there are also indications that the authoritarian state fostered an opposition movement which adopted a centralizing counter-strategy: Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr had propagated the idea of institutionalizing the hawza in the past, for instance through the certification of prayer leaders as well as the establishment of a collegiate council to safeguard the process of succession within the political leadership in times of crisis,160 and many Islamists favored such arrangements as a means to consolidate the position of the religious schools, bemoaning their current ”chaotic” conditions.161
In a development which started with an initiative from the Ba’th regime, Muhammad al-Sadr assumed in the 1990s a number of official tasks in Najaf to the extent that a concept of a more centralized leadership for the hawza emerged, and a journal issued in its name also came into existence, where Sadr’s son Muqtada had an editorial role. 162 Although the Iraqi state at first attempted to use Sadr to gain control among the Shi’is, even his political opponents later acknowledged that he
155 ”Al-sistani yuharrimu intiza’ al-jawami’ min ahl al-sunna wa-akharun yunshi’una hay’a shar’iyya li-al-ishraf ’ala al-azhab”, al-Sharq al-Awsat, May 3, 2003 and interview with Jalal al-Hasanawi, www.alsader.com, May 2003.
156 ”Power Play at Shiite Holy Institution”, Christian Science Monitor, May 14, 2003.
157 Even SCIRI officials who had been in exile expressed a degree of bemusement at the notion of hawza with a defined leadership role, see ”Return of the Ayatollah”, AlAhram Weekly, May 15-21, 2003.
158 Al-Bahadli, Al-hawza, pp. 385-391. See also Fadil Jamali, ”The Theological Colleges of Najaf”, The Muslim World, vol. 50, no. 1 (1960), pp. 15-22.
159 Rz’uf, Al-sadr, p. 107.
160 Chibli Mallat, ”Religious Militancy in Contemporary Iraq: Muhammad Baqer as-Sadr and the Sunni-Shia Paradigm”, Third World Quarterly, vol. 10, no. 2 (1988), p. 727; Faleh Abdul-Jabar ”The Genesis and Development of Marja’ism Versus the State” in idem (ed.), Ayatollahs, Sufis and Ideologues (London, 2002), pp. 84-85.
161 Al-Bahadli, Al-hawza, pp. 251-253.
162 Ra’uf, Al-sadr, p. 442, ”Man huwa samahat al-sayyid muqtada al-sadr?”, www.alsader.com, May 2003.
Shi’i Perspectives on a Federal Iraq
159
eventually managed to use his position to further Shi’i interests in a manner which threatened the regime and ultimately led to his murder in 1999.163 However, one legacy of his period as formal leader of the hawza was a pronounced tension between Sistani, the quietist cleric now considered the only possible leading figure for Najaf s religious establishment in traditionalist circles, and the memory of a far more activist hawza under Sadr’s leadership. It was the spirit of this new force in Iraqi politics which the Sadrites attempted to build upon when they began to issue statements in the name of the hawza, sent enforcers on its behalf,164 and addressed their own master as the leader (za ’im) of the religious schools in April 2003.165
However, Muqtada al-Sadr’s attempt to monopolize the hawza and to turn it into a tool for furthering some of his more radical ideas faced resistance from several quarters. In the first place, as noted above, Sadr had already submitted to one of the basic axioms in ’Usuli Shi’ism which demands that someone who is not schooled in ijtihad must defer to a person who possesses this ability. This raised the prospects for conflicts even with close political allies: the religious prestige of his source of emulation, Ha’iri, could potentially be drawn into controversy over unconventional practices carried out by Sadr in the name of Islam, thus constituting at least a temporary barrier that would have to be negotiated. Ha’iri, in Qum, had himself seen the Afghan Taliban exposed to severe criticism in Iran, partly for policies not altogether different from those pursued by Iraq’s new radicals.166 Many of the same barriers were relevant for the prospect of rapprochement between Sadr and SCIRI (whose leader included explicit warnings against ”Taliban” and the curtailment of women in his first public speeches in Iraq),167 in addition to a long history of personal animosity between Sadr’s father and prominent SCIRI lead-
ers.
168
Secondly, by acknowledging the basic stratification of Shi’i society according to knowledge of Islamic law, the young and radical preachers close to Sadr also made themselves vulnerable to criticism on the terms of the more traditional ulama, as well as Islamists of the old school who were less loyal to Iranian hardliners than Ha’iri and SCIRI. Thus, in May, Muhammad Baqir al-Nasiri, a cleric, a former Da’wa activist and a student of Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, attacked preachers who in the name of Islam demanded that people wear a certain style of clothes, denouncing such persons as ignoramuses (jahala), a strong accusation which questioned the very integrity of these activists.169 Others who opposed the Sadrites could benefit
163 See for instance the posting ”Al Sadr Phenomena”, www.aliraqi.org, May 2, 2003.
164 ”Baghdad Cinemas and Shops Attacked”, Daily Telegraph, June 1, 2003.
165 ”Al-qissa al-kamila li-sa’atayn wa 35 daqiqatan min al-hisar al-musallah intahat biightiyal al-khu’i”, al-Sharq al-Awsat, April 22, 2003.
166 Some Iraqi Shi’is used the term ”the Shi’i ’Taliban’ ” to refer to Sadr and his followers, ”Hizb al-da’wa al-islamiyya yu’idu tanzim sufufihi”, al-Mustaqbal, April 16, 2003.
167 Transcript from Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran Radio, May 11, 2003, published by FBIS; ”Excerpts of Remarks by Iraqi Ayatollah”, AP, May 10, 2003.
168 Al-Shaykh ’Ali, Ightiyal, pp. 73-81.
169 Interview with Nasiri, al-Zaman, May 28, 2003. On his background, see Muhammad al-Gharawi, Talamidhat al-imam al-shahid al-sadr (Beirut, 2002), pp. 295-297.

160
Oil in the Gulf: Obstacles to Democracy and Development
from fatwas from both the politically inclined Fadl Allah as well as the more quietist Sistani, who pointed out that the forceful takeover of Sunni mosques by Shi’is (such as those carried out by people loyal to Sadr) were unlawful according to Islam,170 and a declaration was issued saying that neither Sistani nor any of the other leading ulama in Najaf had made any fatwa imposing the veil on women.171 In addition to this, Sistani signed a declaration underlining the traditional role of the hawza as a purely educational establishment,172 as well as a fatwa regarding the many attempts to speak in the name of the hawza where he firmly redirected the believers to traditional practices and the necessity of listening to the advice of individual clerics and the declarations and fatwas issued by them in person.173 While Sadr’s preachers apparently tried to push the limits in some of their Friday prayers, their acknowledgment of certain basic structures in Shi’ism to some extent could work as a deterrent against this capriciousness, with the traditional hierarchy forming a source of restraint which could not be circumvented as easily as has been the case in certain Sunni contexts. Even the more quietist ulama showed signs of increased assertiveness after the initial weeks of hardliner dominance, an interesting new development possibly induced by the upsurge of radicalism but performed according to their own, traditionalist terms.
Thirdly, even in certain Islamist circles potentially receptive to some of the criticism of the traditional system found in Sadr’s rhetoric,174 fundamental differences of agendas vis-a-vis the new radicals remained, particularly at the elite level. The Da’wa’s focus on Iraqi unity had earlier led them to adopt a basically pragmatic view on politics in a multi-ethnic society with a number of political currents, where secular political parties have also historically had a strong position among the Shi’is. There had already been angry reactions when, in the autumn of

2002, Ha’iri banned co-operation with the Iraqi communists because of their atheistic orientation,17 and attempts to take over Sunni mosques by force, seen in Iraq after the war in 2003, were clearly at variance with the more tolerant strategies for achieving Islamic unity cultivated by the Da’wa in their writings. Friction between the two camps was further accentuated by the ongoing personal rivalry between their main spiritual patrons, Ha’iri and Fadl Allah,176 and there was an
170 ”Lajnat al-difa’ ’an ahl al-sunna fi janub al-’iraq tahsulu ’ala fatwa bi-’adam jawaz ihtilal masajid al-sunna min qibl al-shi’a”, al-Sharq al-Awsat, May 30, 2003. The fatwa from Fadl Allah was significant because some activists were disinclined to follow the advice of the traditionalist Sistani.
171 ”Lam nusaddir fatawa tulzimu al-nisa’ bi-al-hijab”, al-Zaman, June 11, 2003.
172 ”Tawdih hawla mustalah al-hawza al-’ilmiyya”, www.najaf.org, May 26, 2003.
173 Fatwa, www.najaf.org, April 20, 2003.
174 See for instance the elements of a critique of the traditional system of learning, its system of examinations, familist tendencies and even the problem of forged permissions to practice ijtihad in Ra’uf: ’Iraq, pp. 129-130, 407-408. In the same work, the writer lauds the contribution of the two Sadrs (Muhammad Baqir and Muhammad Muhammad Sadiq) to Iraqi Islamism.
175 ”Bayan hawla fatawa tahrim al-i’tilaf’, www.rezgar.com, September 26, 2002.
176 Ra’uf, ’Iraq, pp. 85-98.
Shi’i Perspectives on a Federal Iraq
161
evident potential for more general disagreements similar to those seen in Iran between reformists and hardliners.
Despite the existence of such forces of resistance to Muqtada al-Sadr, it appeared as if the emergence of his movement during the tumultuous period of transition after the fall of the Ba’thist regime did introduce a wild card in the debate over the shape of the state model for the future Iraq. While the established traditionalist and Islamist elites with their well-defined doctrines had little sympathy for Sadr’s volatile manners, there were indications of defections to the Sadrites by rank and file members from both camps.177 And the constraints imposed through the Shi’i hierarchy of learning take on a somewhat academic character if extra-judicial proceedings and vigilantism are allowed to take place with the tacit support of ulama who themselves may continue to play by the rules of traditional jurisprudence, a phenomenon increasingly seen in Iran in recent years.
Through their new relationship to Kazim al-Ha’iri, the Sadrites linked up with a cleric with a clear vision of an Islamic state, where unification and centralization of Islamic leadership are emphasized, and safeguards against over-centralization and the protection of provincial autonomy receive less attention. As long as the nucleus of that regime is located in Teheran, a degree of friction is likely to remain between Ha’iri and his Sadrite followers, with rather unpredictable implications for their contribution to the debate on a new political system in Iraq. On the other hand, for all the media attention accorded to Sadr, it is important to keep in mind the many other forces that make up the Shi’i Islamist scene in Iraq. In these circles, those who favored the US-sponsored vision of a federal democracy were on the defensive in the first weeks after the war ended, but the pragmatism of SCIRI contributed to keeping the concept alive at least as a possible solution for the future. Ironically, in this setting where many of the involved parties entertained some sort of pan-Islamic vision, the federalism issue remained one of several factors that seemed to complicate relations between INC and the Islamist party most consistently devoted to a separate Islamic regime for Iraq, the Da’wa, although the party’s participation in the Madrid conference in April could possibly signal a significant shift in attitude in this regard.